In 1959, Director John Frankenheimer was taping a three-hour production of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. An ambitious, expensive project to be filmed in several New York studios recreating the Spanish Civil War on a tough,10-day schedule with long hours. It had an impressive cast including Jason Robards and Eli Wallach.
Maureen Stapleton was cast as Pilar, but during rehearsal, she told Frankenheimer, “I’m terrified to fire the machine gun.”
Frankenheimer said, “You signed up for the part, so you have to fire it.”
The next day, all the extras were in place when the producer Fred Coe came up to Frankenheimer and yelled, “Why the hell aren’t you taping?”
Frankenheimer tells the story:
I told Fred, “Maureen’s not here.”
“Where the hell is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have her address?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go,” Fred yells. We jump in a taxi, go to Maureen’s apartment building, where Fred threatens the doorman to get her apartment number. I follow Fred into the elevator. He pounds on Maureen’s door and her boyfriend, a big guy, opens the door with a towel wrapped around him.
“Where the hell’s Maureen?” Fred yells. The guy backs off and points to the bedroom. Fred is in a rage as I follow him into the bedroom where Maureen is cowering under a blanket because she heard the yelling.
Fred whips the blanket off of her and throws her completely naked over his shoulder. I’m not a shy guy, but my eyes are budging at what Fred is doing. He yells, “Throw a blanket over her.” Which I do.
Fred carries her to the taxi. At the studio he throws her into the make-up chair and yells, “Get ready to be out there in 15 minutes.”
Maureen was so terrified of Fred that she had no trouble firing the machine gun.
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